Addiction IV: What Does Growth Look Like?

What does spiritual growth, i.e., the process of being freed from addictions unto a heart that can be loved and love, look like?

May continues,
"It is important to note that the spiritual growth process involves far more relinquishment than acquisition. In our culture, we are conditioned to expect growth to involve acquisition of new facts and understanding... We have, in a way , become attached to the very process of expanding our attachments.

...But spiritual growth is different. it cannot be packaged, programmed, or taught. Although some new facts may help us along the way, the essential process is one of transformation, not education."

"Here is the most fundamental and critical distinction between simple human desire and truly corrosive attachment. The wanting, yearning, longing quality of pure desire is natural and God-given. It is not only necessary for life; it also lends a rich open-endedness to existence, a lack of complete satisfaction that is powerfully creative and, in many ways, joyful. But the grasping, clinging, possessive quality of attachment is something very different. It is restrictive, not creative, imperative instead of enjoyable. As William Blake said, "rather than binding ourselves to joy, we must kiss it as it flies."

Is growth a steady assent towards maturity?? (Wouldn't that be nice???!)

"Spiritual growth is by no means a steady process. Each time we touch the mystery of what is most real, we can flee back into "normality with some deeper layer of attachment threatened. Often upon return we may experience a backlash, a rebound of self-centeredness and desperate attempts to control things. We may find prayer more difficult at such times, and we are almost certain to invent new representations to take the place of those we have had to relinquish. The choices we make on such occasions become very important. Although they do not by themselves determine any outcomes, they do create the patterns of our freedom and slavery, and these, interwoven with God's patterns of grace, form our unique tapestries of spiritual growth."

Are there tools in the process?

"Prayer, scripture, sacraments, spiritual community, and self-examination can all be sources of guidance as we seek to make such choices. But finally, even here at the heart of our human freedom, we are dependent upon the mercy of God."

...

There is so much more in this book!! ... including an excellent chapter on GRACE, and the role of faith in the growth process. But for now, I must move on to this semester's studies... If you would like to hear more, read the book for yourself!

Addiction & Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions, by Gerald May.